The Indo-Iranians

Homework

Read the sections below.  Use the Table of Contents above to navigate if you wish.

Questions to Ponder:

1.  The big question to think about this week is what aspects of culture, including religion, made the Indo-Europeans so successful.  As you go through this week's reading, try to compile a list of possible answers to that question for us to discuss in class.

2. As you go through the readings, look over some of the Rig Vedas especially RV10.129.  What do you think?

3. What do you make of Sama Veda chanting?

4. Likewise, look over a few of the Atharavedas?  What strikes you?

5. Up to now, most Indo-European societies (Celts, Romans, Germans, but not the Greeks) have been largely monogamous, except for political unions.   What factors do you think may have driven polygamy in the Vedic period?

6. What do you think in general of the role of women in Vedic society?  Why was it like that and to what extent have those cultural practices continued?

7. How did the rigid structuring of society with the caste system preserve and enforce the culture?

8. What do you make of Zoroaster's  Gatha 29: The Lament of the Cow?

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Indo-Iranian Genetics

The above map is taken from a 2019 paper by Narasimhan, et al, titled The Formation of Human Populations in South and Central Asia.  The authors sequenced ancient DNA from 523 individuals from Central Asia, Pakistan, and northern India to determine the genetic flow among populations during the Bronze and Iron Age.  Some of their conclusions are as follows:

1. Neolithic farmers from the Levant and Turkey not only brought farming to Europe, but they also spread eastward across the Iranian Plateau, and brought farming to the indigenous hunter gatherers of Iran.  The percentage of Neolithic farmer genes declines from west to east across Central Asia, from 31% in eastern Iran to 7% in western Iran.  The people of the BMAC were ancestors of the Iranian farmers, who brought agriculture and herding further east to Central Asia.  These same farmers travelled over the Hindu Kush and brought farming to the Indus Valley Civilization starting around 5400 BCE, mixing with the Ancient Ancestral South Indian inhabitants of India.  Individuals in the Indus Valley Civilization were a mixture of 50-80% Iranian farmers with Ancient Ancestral South Indians.

2. The map above shows the spread of steppe ancestry.  Starting from 1 on the map, the Yamnaya spread westward along the Danube river into Western Europe, probably with the Bell Beaker Culture.  The Yamnaya also went eastward to the Altai mountains in southern Siberia, most likely bringing the Tocharian language to north-central  Asia.

3. From 3 on the map above, the Corded Ware culture spread across northern Europe and also eastward to the Ural mountains, with the Sintashta culture and further eastwards to Kazakhstan with the similar Andronovo culture.  The Corded Ware had about 2/3 steppe ancestry and 1/3 Neolithic farmer ancestry which they probably picked up in their formation north of the Pontic-Caspian steppes.  They maintained the same genetics through Sintashta and Andronovo, but when they arrived at the BMAC, they had gained about 10% of their genes from Western Siberian Hunter Gatherer cultures, probably around the Tian Shan mountains in eastern Kazakhstan.  Thus the skeletons with steppe ancestry found at BMAC sites had about 50% steppe ancestry.

4. After the Indo-Aryans moved southward, individuals from the Swat Valley in the Punjab around 1000 BCE had about 20% steppe ancestry.  The authors state that this ancestry came mostly from males, suggesting that it was a migration of predominantly males who settled in the Punjab and married with indigenous females.

5. The degree of steppe ancestry in India today forms a cline, with the most in the northern half of India, and the least in the southern half of India, suggesting that the migrations of steppe people spread eastward from the Punjab to the Ganges River, but did not extend all the way to southern India.

6. Steppe ancestry is unusually high today among the Brahmin caste of India. The Brahmins were the priestly class in Hinduism, responsible for performing rituals and maintaining the sacred Sanskrit texts.   Looking at the percentage of R1a haplogroup on the Y chromosome of current populations, we find that 72% of Bengali Brahmins today have haplogroup R1a, indicating continuous descent from the Corded Ware ancestors 5000 years ago.  The authors say "A possible explanation is that the influx of Central_Steppe_MLBA ancestry into South Asia in the mid-2nd millennium BCE created a meta-population with varied proportions of Steppe ancestry, with people of more Steppe ancestry (or admixing less with Indus Periphery Cline groups) tending to be more strongly associated with Indo-European culture. Due to strong endogamy, which kept groups generally isolated from neighbors for thousands of years (7), some of this population substructure persists in South Asia among present-day custodians of Indo-European texts."

7. In modern day Iran, percentages of R1a are low in the west and up to 35% in some eastern parts of Iran, indicating that the Indo-Iranian peoples invaded eastern Iran, but did not spread all the way westward.  We'll look at the Avestan Indo-Iranian culture after we look at the Vedic religion.

The Rig Veda

The Rig Veda is a collection of ten books, with a total of 1028 hymns.  They can be found online HERE. These hymns were used by priests in sacrifice rituals, mostly Soma sacrifices.  Books 2-7 are family books, associated with various clans or chieftans, composed in a time when there were five large tribes of nomadic herders in the Punjab.  The hymns were composed by specific priests, often named, and the family books often had hymns from several generations of the same composer's family.  They were composed in the Sanskrit language; the word Sanskrit means "put together, well formed, perfected" suggesting that the language was used for religious ceremonies, as opposed to vernacular uses.  The Rigveda hymns are very sophisticated poetry, mostly with collections of four verses, each with eleven syllables or three verses of eight syllables.  This poetic structure was similar to some Greek poetry, especially the Aeolic meters used by Sappho and Alcaeus.   Sanskrit is a highly inflected language: each noun has eight grammatical cases and up to three numbers (singular, plural or more), for a total of 24 separate forms.  Verbs have three persons (I, you, they) and three numbers (I, we two, we all) for a total of nine forms.  There are a wide variety of tenses, moods and voices, leading to an extremely complex language, which probably mirrors the complexity of proto-Indo-European.   Why nomadic herders used such a language of such complexity, whose daughter languages have since been greatly simplified, is still a mystery to me.  

For bardic purposes, the complex relationships between verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs, allowed the composers great freedom with word order since the related words could be easily identified across phrases; this made it easier to follow the rigid metrical verse structure.

We cannot appreciate the beauty of the Sanskrit since we are reading English translations, but the compositions include repetition, lists, numbers, questions, poetic repair, cosmic speculation, dialogs, monologues, imagery, metaphor, similes, ambiguities, change in register, puns, obscurity, complexity, alliteration, assonance and complex phonological patterns.  Many of the hymns are great works of art, which is why they were passed down by the bardic priests of the family clans for hundreds of years.  Around the year 1000 BCE, the clans were united into a kingdom and the hymns from the clans were collected and canonized in their present form, to reinforce a uniform orthodox religion across the kingdom.  The hymns were then faithfully preserved by oral repetition in Hindu schools for another two thousand years until they were finally written down.

r̥tá or Cosmic Order

 ṛtá is a Sanskrit word which roughly translates to the principle of natural order which regulates and coordinates the operation of the universe and everything in it.  It is the central moral concept of the Rig Veda.  The spoken words had immense power; as Jamison and Brereton say, "order is order insofar as it can be expressed in words; words in some sense create the reality of the ordered cosmos. In other words, r̥tá is both “truth” in verbal terms and the “reality” that it expresses. R̥tá essentially defines what a being or object is and what it does, and it structures the relationships of beings and objects with other beings and objects. Moreover, “truth” is not a passive concept; it does more than reflect reality. By speaking these truths of essence and relationship, the poets could make the truths real and actual in the present. Words create worlds."

Jamison, Stephanie; Brereton, Joel. The Rigveda: A Guide (Guides to Sacred Texts) (p. 114). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. 

The Vedic poets saw identifications between the world of the gods, the world of ritual and the world of everyday life.  By using allusions and similies they could bridge the three separate worlds and help to control the powerful forces of the cosmic order through the ritual.  If they were successful, their patron, the chief or king would receive blessings of good weather and livestock from the gods which he could distribute to his people.  The rituals modeled the two organizing principles of Indo-European society: the Patron-Client relationship and the Guest-Host relationship.

The Atharvaveda

The Atharvaveda is a third of the four Vedas, likely compiled around 1200-1000 BCE.  It is a collection of 730 hymns which include charms, incantations, and magic spells, giving us a window into the concerns of the everyday life of common people.  HERE is the entire collection.   Below are a few that you can look at or not.  What strikes you?

A young man's love-charm

A woman's love-charm

A charm to be used at child-birth

A benediction on a new-born child

A blessing on a child's first two teeth

A prayer for a boy's long and happy life

A charm against all sorts of worms

A charm against nightmare

A charm to ensure success in gambling

A prayer for pardon of cheating at play

On the means to obtain immunity from taxation in the next world

A benediction on a newly cut water channel

A farmer's song and prayer to speed the plough

A parting traveller's address to the houses of his village

A glorification of hospitable reception of guests

A benediction on a warrior

A charm to recover a dying man

On the means to obtain immunity from taxation in the next world

A hymn to the Full Moon

A charm for the destruction of malignant goblins

A charm to promote the growth of hair

The Role of Women

The Vedic period was a very male dominated society.  Women were confined to the home for domestic duties and the raising of children.  Jamison and Brereton say, "Women are visible only in the roles related to their stage in life. We often meet beautiful and seductive young women, since the goddess Dawn is regularly compared to them. But there was obviously considerable anxiety for the unmarried girl, especially one without a brother to help in the husband-finding. As in later orthodox Hinduism, the only satisfactory path for women was marriage. In RVI.124 Dawn is first described as “exulting in her spotless body” (verse 6) but immediately after is compared to “a brotherless (girl) who goes right up to men” (similarly, RVIV.5.5). Young women are several times depicted as going to festive gatherings (RVI.124.8, etc.), quite possibly to find eligible partners, or to a rendezvous (RVI.123.9), but in I.167.3 “a young woman roving in secret, going to men in a public hall” seems to refer to a less respectable or happy pursuit. The plight of the woman “who grows old at home” (amā-júr) is clearly pitiable (e.g., VIII.21.15), and the text also touches obliquely on a girl who has a child out of wedlock (RV5.2.1). Still, the happy girl newly engaged to a worthy bridegroom is also given due space, as in RVX.27.12 “the maiden, gratified all around by an admirable (gift) worthy to be chosen, from a bride-seeking man from among the young bloods. She becomes a fortunate bride, when she is well-adorned. She wins herself an ally [=spouse] in public.” In an oft-repeated simile the wife is depicted as “richly dressed, ever eager for her husband” (RVI.124.7, etc.). But the existence of two charms against co-wives make it clear that for some wives, competition for male attention continued after marriage. And the chilling simile “as a single common husband does his wives, Indra has dragged down all the strongholds to submission” (VII.26.3) does not cast a favorable light on such marriage."

Jamison, Stephanie; Brereton, Joel. The Rigveda: A Guide (Guides to Sacred Texts) (pp. 41-42). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Up to now, most Indo-European societies (Celts, Romans, Germans, but not the Greeks) have been largely monogamous, except for political unions.   What factors do you think may have driven polygamy in the Vedic period?

We noted above that a widow would lie next to her husband on the funeral pyre, signifying the death of the marriage, and then another man, usually the brother of the deceased, would marry her.  RV10.18.8:  “Arise, woman, to the world of the living. You lie beside him whose life is gone. Come here! You have come into existence now as wife of a husband who has grasped your hand and wishes to have you.”  According to Anand Yang, in  "Whose Sati? Widow-Burning in early Nineteenth Century India", the word agre, "to go forth", was (probably in the 16th century) deliberately mistranslated into agneh, "into the fire", to give Vedic sanction for sati, or the practice of burning the widow alive on her husband's funeral pyre.

What do you think in general of the role of women in Vedic society?  Why was it like that and to what extent have those cultural practices continued?

Evolution of Hinduism

Michael Witzel wrote a famous paper titled Early Sanskritization: Origins and Development of the Kuru State which gave some excellent explanations for how the Vedic society matured into Hinduism.  For centuries five great tribes of Aryans prospered on the tributaries of the Indus River Valley.  They were organized into clans which gathered under tribes with a chief and priests who ran the rituals and composed beautiful hymns which were passed down for generations.  When faced with a threat, the tribes could gather together under a temporary king and wage war together.  Their enemies were called Dāsa, which may have been a term applied to the original inhabitants of the BMAC culture, or the aboriginal North Indians, or even perhaps other Indo-European tribes which did not properly sacrifice to the gods.  When not at war, the Männerbund, or bands of young men probably raided cattle from neighboring Aryan tribes or attacked the aboriginals.  This went on for many centuries until perhaps around 1000 BCE.  The Kuru tribe (see map above) was the most powerful tribe and managed to unite the five tribes into a kingdom.  The consolidation may have followed a great war, described in the Rig Veda as the Battle of the Ten Kings, and later elaborated into the longest poem ever: the Mahabharata, of which the Bhagavad Gita forms a small part. 

The power of tribal kings had been based in part on success in war leading to distribution of booty, as well described in Homer's Illiad.  The Kuru kings needed a more stable society so they replaced the distribution of war booty with a collection of tax or tribute on the farmers.  That "fair" taxes could be deemed excessive can be seen in Artharvaveda 3.29, when one wishes that taxes in heaven will just be 1/16 of the harvest.  The king redistributed the taxes to his military and nobles to reinforce loyalty.

Another thing the Kuru kings did was to canonize the existing body of hymns and collect them in the Rig Veda.  Rituals would no longer be an art form performed by brilliant bardic priests, but more orthodox chanting of existing hymns.  The rituals were extended down into society so that young men, instead of gaining fame and fortune only on the battlefield, could gain status by having the Brahmin priests perform more elaborate rituals for his family.

A more stable, non-mobile hierarchal society with very defined social roles allowed for increased agricultural production, which allowed for urbanization, and specialization of trade crafts.  The Brahmins played a strong role in society and opened schools which wrote the Upanishads, new texts which moved beyond ritual to meditation, philosophy and consciousness.  The cow, giver of milk, curd, butter, urine and dung became venerated as a symbol of the divine.

In the last half of the first millennium, Buddhism arose, in part as a reaction against some of the religious practices of Hinduism.  Jainism is another great religion which arose around this time; it's emphasis on non-violence may also have been a reaction against Hinduism.  By today, Hinduism has completely changed from its Vedic heritage, and with its focus on ethics, duties and freedom from the tyranny of passions, it offers many spiritual solutions to life's many problems.

Iranians

When the proto-Vedic tribes crossed over the Hindu Kush into the Indus Valley, others stayed behind, living on the ruins of the former cities of the Bactria-Margiana Architectural Complex (BMAC), and expanding to the Iranian plateau in the west and Afghanistan in the east.  The echos of this culture can be seen in the percentage of R1a haplogroups in the modern day, which range from 68% in Tajikistan, 62% in Afghanistan, to 35% in eastern Iran.  Today over 150 million people speak Iranian languages including Persian, Pashto, Kurdish and Balochi.  The earliest recorded Iranian language is Avestan. which is very closely related to Sanskrit.  Sometime early on, the Iranian languages underwent a sound change from Indo-Sanskrit where *s turned into "h"; thus the Vedic river Sindhu into Avestan Hindu (Indus River), Sarasvati river into Haraxhvaiti, and Soma into Haoma.

Following the collapse of the BMAC around 1900 BCE, the Yaz culture appeared in the same central Asian areas.  These were settlements using irrigation for farming and they lasted for about a thousand years starting from 1500 BCE.  No burials have been found, possibly suggesting a link to the sky burial practice of later Zoroastrianism.  The spread of proto-Iranians throughout Afghanistan most likely occurred through nomadic pastoralism, as few settlements have been found.

Religion

The proto-Iranians most likely practiced a religion very similar to the early Vedic religion of the Rig Vedas.  No records were made until the appearance of a religious reformer named Zoroaster or Zarathushtra.  Little is known about Zoroaster.  Maybe he lived in Afghanistan or Tajikistan.  Maybe he lived around 1000 BCE, or earlier or later.  He likely lived in a nomadic family; his father's name means 'possessing gray horses'  while his mother's means 'milkmaid'.

Zoroaster's revelation was that the universe was ruled by a single supreme being, Ahura Mazda meaning Lord of Wisdom.  Ahura Mazda was a creator deity and lord of the sky, and Zoroaster is credited for inventing one of the first monotheistic religions.  There are aspects of dualism, although they may have crept in later, as the evil spirit Angra Mainyu is a force opposing Ahura Mazda.  Many in the Rig Veda pantheon, including Indra are regarded as demons or daeva, in service of Angra Mainyu, to be rejected.  The cosmic forces of good and evil were reflected in mankind, who contained both good and evil.  Zoroaster predicted an eventual triumph of Ahura Mazda, and the challenge and opportunity for mankind was to follow Ahura Mazda by doing good deeds and suppressing evil.

Zoroaster is believed to have written 17 hymns to Ahura Mazda, called gathas, from the Proto-Indo-Iranian word *gaHtʰáH, from the root *gaH- "to sing.  These were collected with 55 other hymns and prayers to form the core Avestan liturgical texts called the Yasna.  You can find a translation HERE.  Perhaps you can see a criticism of Indo-European cattle rustling in Zoroaster's Gatha 29, The Lament of the Cow:

1. Unto you wailed the Ox-soul, "For whom did ye fashion me? Who created me? Violence and rapine (and) savagery hath oppressed me, and outrage and might. I have no other herdsman than you; prepare for me then the blessings of pasture."

2. Then the Ox-Creator asked of the Right: "Hast thou a judge for the Ox, that ye may be able to appoint him zealous tendance as well as fodder? Whom do ye will to be his lord, who may drive off violence together with the followers of the Lie?"

3. To him the Right replied: "There is for the Ox no helper that can keep him away. Those yonder have no knowledge how right-doers act towards the lowly".
(The Ox-Creator): "Strongest of beings is he to whose help I come at call".

4. (Asha) "Mazda knoweth best the purposes that have been wrought already by demons and by mortals, and that shall be wrought hereafter. He, Ahura, is the decider. So shall it be as he shall will."

5. (The Ox-Creator) "To Ahura with outspread hands we twain would pray, my soul and that of the pregnant cow, so that we twain urge Mazda with entreaties. Destruction is not for the right-living, nor for the cattle-tender at the hands of Liars."

6. Then spake Ahura Mazda himself, who knows the law with wisdom: "There is found no lord or judge according to the Right Order for the Creator hath formed thee for the cattle-tender and the farmer."

7. This ordinance about the fat hath Ahura Mazda, one in will with Right, created for cattle, and the milk for them that crave nourishment, by his command, the holy one.
(The Ox and Cow:) "Whom hast thou, O Good Thought, among men, who may care for us twain?"

8. (Vohu Manah:) He is known to me here who alone hath heard our commands, even Zarathushtra Spitama; he willeth to make known our thoughts, O Mazda, and those of the Right. So let us bestow on him charm of speech.

9. Then the Ox-Soul lamented: "That I must be content with the ineffectual word of an impotent man for my protector, when I wish for one that commands mightily! When ever shall there be one who shall give him (the Ox) effective help?"

10. (Zarathushtra:) Do ye, O Ahura, grant them strength, and O Asha, and O Good Thought, that dominion, whereby he (the Savior) could produce good dwellings and peace. I also have realized thee, Mazda, as the first to accomplish this.

11. "Where are Right and Good Thought and Dominion? So, ye men, acknowledge me, for instruction, Mazda, for the great society."
(The Ox and Cow:) "O Ahura, now is help ours, we will be ready to serve those that are of you."

Zoroastrianism

Zoroaster faced resistance to his religious reform, and as it developed, many elements of the old Indo-European religion crept back in.  The main Zoroastrianism ceremony is a fire ceremony, similar to the Soma sacrifice,  in which haoma (soma) is prepared, mixed with milk and offered to the fire (but not imbibed) while the Yasna is sung by the priests.  The Vedic god Mitra also was worshiped as a lesser sun god divinity, Ahura Mithra, possibly because he represented an acceptable god of "covenant, agreement, treaty, alliance, and promise."  The ritual sacrifice of animals was transformed to a ritual offering of fat prior to meals.